Do I treat Glocks like I treat my lawn mowers? No, I treat them worse. I treat my defensive weapons like my fire extinguishers and smoke detector - annual maintenance and I expect them to work when needed

It's been dubbed as the "dairy cliff," and if lawmakers don't give this bill some attention soon, farmers will continue operation under a 1940s law since the farm bill expired three months ago.

Federal funding assured through March 2013 has kept prices at the average for now, but if the first of the year comes and goes without any action on the farm bill, prices could skyrocket.

The cost would be based on the cost of production, set over 64 years ago, which would pass along more cost to the consumers.

Do you ever wonder where milk comes from? Who, exactly, enables you to procure the white fluid?

I don't know about where you live, but around here the number of dairymen have been plummeting, and the few dairy farmers left are simply there by inertia. They've always been around the business, and they do it because they love the life.

I once made my living selling a product that allowed people to easily keep up with commodity prices (before the internet was universal. Really. There was a time when the internet was available to the neither the hoi nor the polloi.) Even back then the number of dairy herds was in decline; my friend at the dairy tells me that the trend has only accelerated.

You can demand that the producers produce at a desired price. It is a bit trickier to demand that the nonproductive produce what is demanded. Looking at your chart, it is telling that the products that have increased least in price are foodstuffs requiring the least processing (milk and eggs, once the cow and chicken do their part most of the hard work is done). Whereas homes cost 20X, gas 10X, postage 9X, bread almost 10X and so on milk and eggs are up about 3X.

Thats just it: I cannot demand that producers produce milk at a price that I set, because the government (federal and various states) have set price limits, and guarantee customers. The result is that many inefficient dairy farmers stay in business, dairy cattle from California get moved to Nebraska because their milk is more valuable there, and people are grossly misinformed about the value of the product they use.

Get the government out of setting prices for commodities. Get the government out of setting minimum standards for milk fat....if I as a consumer want lower or higher levels of milk fat, vitamins, protein or any other damned thing in my milk products, I can pay for it......or decide that the real cost isn't worth it to me.

For the record, the only dairy products we use on a regular basis are cheese, butter, and half-and-half for coffee. We rarely have liquid milk in the house unless we're cooking something that requires it.

Do I treat Glocks like I treat my lawn mowers? No, I treat them worse. I treat my defensive weapons like my fire extinguishers and smoke detector - annual maintenance and I expect them to work when needed

I looked into it a bit, and now I understand what the problem is: The old (1941) Farm Law mandated that the government pay much higher prices to support milk prices that the later bill. With the later bill defunct (at the moment) the earlier, much higher mandates take effect, apperently.

So, with the government forced by law to bid $8.00 a gallon for milk, that will naturally drive up the cost for the private consumer as well.

The solution? Remove all price supports and let the price of milk find its market level. It may end up being even lower than we've been paying of late, given the vast improvement in dairy productivity over the years.

The solution? Remove all price supports and let the price of milk find its market level. It may end up being even lower than we've been paying of late, given the vast improvement in dairy productivity over the years.

Fortuna Fortis Paratus“In the house of a wise man are stores of food, wine, and oil, but the foolish man devours all he has.” Proverbs 21:20"We are content with discord, we are content with alarms, we are content with blood, but we will never be content with a master." -Pashtun malik, 1815